Praise for Aberdeen Christmas village as work gets underway to dismantle rides

Workers have moved in to begin dismantling Aberdeen’s Christmas Village.

Already the snowball bungee ride has been removed and crews are dismantling the ice rink.

Crews are removing the stalls and rides from the Christmas village

It came as the boss of a business body praised the Christmas Village, but said there are still lessons to be learned.

Adrian Watson, the chief executive of Aberdeen Inspired, said this year’s event improved on the last, but he also said there is no room for complacency.

The 2018 village closed for the final time on Hogmanay, after more than a month spent on Broad Street, as well as Upperkirkgate.

Speaking to the Evening Express, Mr Watson said: “There’s not a lot that we can say until we get the report in from Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce in January, but the intial soundings are very positive.

“We’re still waiting for the footfall figures, but the crowds have been a lot healthier, the feedback that we’ve got on the ground has been better and the public has been, in relative terms, very positive.

“There’s always more that you can do, but the market that we’ve put on, which seems to be relatively big when you look at events in other cities, has been very positively received in Aberdeen.”

The 2017 event, which was the first to be held on Broad Street after its move from Union Terrace Gardens, faced scrutiny from a council committee after a drop in footfall, but Mr Watson said lessons had been learned from the 2017 event.

He said: “The event space wasn’t finished last year, so that was a challenge in itself.

“But this time, we listened to feedback, we were able to expand on to Upperkirkgate and we’ve been really positively received this year.”

The chief executive said the focus was on the Christmas in the Quad side of the event, which saw a rotation of 70 local businesses set up shop, selling to passing trade from the Quad at Marischal College.

He said: “What we really wanted to home in on was the Quad this year.

“We had 70 businesses in to sell their finery, and that was really well received as well.

“That’s something that we want to build on in the coming years, and it’s really something that I would like to see expanded.”

When asked if the event will likely return in the future, Mr Watson said that there is certainly demand for it.

He said: “The feedback that we’ve had today, and even last year with all the challenges we had, was there was a huge desire to have some form of Christmas celebration in the city, and I think that’s got stronger.”